Booker T. Washington

If there is anything in these addresses which will be of interest or service to a still wider audience, I shall feel I have been more than repaid for any effort that I have put forth in connection with them.

When the Louisiana State Constitutional Convention was in session, I wrote an open letter to that body pleading for justice for the race.

This I have said here, not to call attention to myself as an individual, but to the race to which I am proud to belong.

It is disgraceful for a girl to go about with a soiled apron, or with her clothes pinned together.

This is an annual gathering which now brings to the school eight or nine hundred representative men and women of the race, who come to spend a day in finding out what the actual industrial, mental, and moral conditions of the people are…

I am filled with gratitude and admiration for your work, and from this time forward I shall have absolute confidence in your progress and in the solution of the problem in which you are engaged.

I used to picture the way that I would act under such circumstances; how I would begin at the bottom and keep rising until I reached the highest round of success.

My heart is too full—full of hope, admiration, and pride for my countrymen of both sections and both colours.

I congratulate all who are associated in this undertaking for the good work which it is doing in the education of its students to lead lives of honour and usefulness, thus exalting the race for which it was established.

In fact, the greater part of the education I secured in my boyhood was gathered through the night-school after my day’s work was done.

It is disgraceful for a man to go about with ragged clothes or with clothes fastened together with pins where buttons ought to be.

But in all these matters keep in mind the high purpose for which you came here--to get an education.